Visitors to exhibition spaces, such as museums and art galleries, often wish to depart with information about one or more topics that have interested them during their visit. Traditionally this have been done by the visitor visiting a bookshop or the like located near the exit of the exhibition where they can purchase hard copy information material (books, prints etc.) and, increasingly, electronic media (pre-recorded audio and video tapes, CD-ROMS, DVDs, etc).
However, frequently only a small part of the contents of such materials will be of interest to any one visitor. What is needed is a more targeted way of making information available to visitors.
One way of doing this would be to provide kiosks at the exit of the exhibition where a visitor could make their own selection of information they require, this information then being written to an electronic media which is provided to the visitor for a price dependent on the value of the information content concerned. Storing the information to an electronic media is more practical than providing hard copy materials because the time taken to create an electronic copy is generally much less than that required to produce a one-off hard copy version of the information concerned.
However, making the information available only at kiosks near the exhibition exit creates a bottleneck. What is needed is a way of distributing the information collection process around the exhibition but in a manner that provides protection for the value of the information concerned.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a way of controlling the transfer of information from data sources to a visitor (or other type of user).